green apron monkey

hmmm. . .

Apparently I spent a good portion of Friday night pelting the teacher's dorms at Petroleum Univeristy with dirt clods.

the many lives of one kuai

or attack of the boozy girl

One Kuai is a fish. He's a happy little Chinese fish of the type which is locally called shi ze tou; lion head. One Kuai is called One Kuai because that was his price. He was given as a gift from The Girl to Claire. He also apparently has a secret name which is Edmund or Eugene or some such other name that conjures up images of pale, skinny English boys in school shorts. I really don't know why fish need secret names. To me he is One Kuai.

Normally One Kuai leads a rather boring existence, swimming around, eating pellets and making little bubbly noises. His only excitement is to jump out of the water like a trout.

Late the night before last though, the Girl came back from the pub where she was drinking with our local model UN members. She was a little deep in to her cups as is her wont on a Saturday evening. What happened when she got home was, in retrospect inevitable. Our house-shoes are stored in a little metal structure in the hallway, just around the corner from One Kuai, his lamp and a little bowl full of change that he guards. In a house which sees a fair share of boozy people trying to get to the bathroom through this hallway, that the house-shoes should be kicked and little One Kuai sent tumbling seems a fairly high probability. And so it was . . .

But One Kuai is a smart, lucky little fish. In the general tumble the aforementioned bowl was emptied of change and filled with water.Somehow, the change bowl landed upright. One Kuai, either by luck or skillful flopping ended up, not under the couch (Certain Unpleasant Death) but rather in the bowl. I found him in tight new quarters, but alive and breathing. He spent the rest of his night in a pot normally reserved for spaghetti (which I think I will clean after I'm done updating).

The Girl, in her state, felt horrible for what she had done to our beloved fish. The effects of alcohol and the process of memory encoding being what it is, she was convinced for a short time the next day that she had killed the fish. Then it was revealed that he was living a happy existence in a spaghetti bowl.

Now he has a new, nicer fish bowl, bought by the girl by way of apology.

right into your memory banks

We did, after all, get turkey. It wasn't much like thanksgiving. I haven't ever been in a beer drinking contest on thanksgiving before. Nor is thanksgiving usually quite as given over to booty dancing as this one was. Good thing I'm not a traditionalist.

Still I did end up coming home early, feeling tired and wistful. I've made a mix, just for that to make me feel better. It is sad to be away from the family on thanksgiving no matter what the entertainment level is on the alternative.

homesick subterrainean laowei

I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I'd like to lay my weary bones tonight
On a bed of California stars

Yes I'd give my life
To lay my head tonight on a bed
of California stars

-woody guthrie

It's easy to miss temperate California. I wish I was camping right now, for some reason.

busy . . . busy all the time

My visa is gotten, I'm still finishing up the TEFL, packing and straightening out finances.

My heart is aching. I will miss people.

hello weekend

So I got a little party together this weekend. I have a lot of weird, anti-social friends, and as it happens when they all get together they act weird and anti-social together. It had the normal trappings of a party (beer, barbeque) but with a whole bunch of people visibly uncomfortable with a large group of (largely visibly uncomfortable) people.

I love all my friends and so I really apreciate when they all try to overcome their social handicaps and come together. Still, when I look around at one of my parties I hear Bikini Kill in my head:

I said I wanna come over
You said ok just come over
Your friends are all on the couch
Your friends said let's walk around
I'll pretend your friends are my friends
And kinda try not to offend them
But I won't let you see anything real
Let you know
There's limits to --

I stopped talking an hour ago
I stopped talking an hour ago
I stopped talking an hour ago
I stopped talking an hour ago

SO yeah any gathering that we have is an entry in something we like to call The Socially Awkward Olympics. (Yes, I do have a few normal party-enjoying people in my circles, but even these are strangely clannish and have difficulty mingling).

Still I got at least a little time with a lot of people that I adore. I had an awesome time. Until about three in the morning, but lets not get into that.

The true highlight of the weekend was the greasy hangover breakfast and coffee that Kamice, Slackbastard, Joshy and I busted out with the grace, style and slight hostility of a seasoned kitchen.

Let me tell you something: cook apples and onions and bacon all together then scramble eggs into the grease. People will worship you. They will.

ooooh

I fantasize about burning my workplace down.

Frequently.

The funny thing is that I only have a month left. I hope I can make it through the month without resorting to termination through kerosene.

I'm not sure if it's the store or me. I'm burnt out and hateful; but the store is absurd and badly organized.

I guess the answer is something like: who gives a crap? You hate your job and you only need it for one more month. Quit whining.

Oh yeah.

next time won't you sing with me

A is for Abortion
"Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others."

B is for Birth Control
I practice it regularly. So should you.

C is for Correctional System
The phrase gives me images of a legion of severe faced grammarians.

D is for Death Penalty
It can be moral. It can be practical. It can't be both.

E is for Euthanasia
A good way to go.

F is for Fetish
I am boringly free of them. Luckily, I am somone's fetish.

G is for Gun Control
I am in favor of it in the case of morons, but as they blend in with the general population rather well, I am just in favor of it.

H is for Hookers (because P for Prostitution was taken)
Wouldn't it be nice if they were ever cute?

I is for Illnesses *
I don't ever worry about them and they rarely trouble me. Hypochondria is the opposite of happiness.

J is for Justice
An oft capitolized word, that gives us much pain.

K is for Karma
I don't believe in God. I don't believe in Karma. But I would rather believe in God, because the world seems designed and only after we inestigate it did we come up with reasons why it probably was not. Karma - right rewards for right actions- is an idea manifestly contradicted by my RSS feeds every morning, and investigation does not give any good reason for why it should seem so.

L is for Love
If it is an illusion, a romantic myth, then it is my favorite.

M is for Marijuana
An unpleasant drug that does little to me other than disrupt my ability to stand up straight. Seems to be harmless and quite a boone to the snack food industry. Overall, a social good.

N is for Nationalism (because P for Patriotism was taken)
A feeling of community, of shared purpose. Rather ugly when stirred up though.

O is for Occupation *
unemployed economist, barista and assitant at a montessori school

P is for Political Affiliation *
Democrat, of the Rubin/Summers/Krugman/DeLong faction.

Q is for Quotation *
My old roomate was very quotable.

R is for Religion
Athiest indicates where I am betting the dice will come up. Agonistic tells that I know that we discussing a game of chance. I don't think "Bright" will catch on.

S is for Sexual Orientation *
I like girls.

T is for Taxes
I'm too poor to pay many. I do have a certain amount of sympathy for reforming the way capital is taxed.

U is for United States
We dominate the world. We don't like it, they don't like it. Rudyard Kipling is laughing his ass off right now.

V is for Vices *
Sloth, Lust and Avarice are my favorites. Gluttony is pretty nice too.

W is for War
Dangerous stuff, when the leaders of the world arrive at a simultaneous decision to murder each other.

X is for X-Ray Vision (I don`t know...be creative...)
I would use it for Lust and then Avarice

Y is for Youth of Today
What the hell is wrong with you kids?! Rap-rock? Boy bands? Avril Lavigne? Why? The worst thing we made everyone listen to when we were in High School was ska and Prodigy.

Z is for Zodiac Sign
Taurus, if you must know

lost party

We had a fun party here on Saturday, and there were lots of pictures. Then elex individually rotated them. Then he accidently deleted all but a handful.

So, the only photo you get to see is this one.

drought

SHould I blame the lack of blogging on the fact that I have nothing to say or no time to say it? Both, in all probability. When I have time I find things to say. It's rough going just sitting down front of a computer and writing because I think I should.

When I saw this post from Ticknart, I daresay I know what he meant by it. Sometimes it feels like I'm just taking up space so that my blog's layout doesn't look all fucked up.

So here's the news. China is now set for August. June was a little early for both me and the school. When offered the chance to get cheaper plane tickets, more money from starbucks (through stock grants from four years ago that vest in October and are still available three months after I quit) and, importantly, a little more time with my girlfriend.

The girl has moved into granma house (that's what we call this place). The original plan was that she would take Tom's room, who departs this weekend for the tenderloin district of San Francisco. (If you are going to have to brush aside a couple of crackheads to get to his apartment, don't worry about it. They won't even notice). She got kicked out a few weeks ahead of schedule, though. So we have a new girl and a new cat adapting to this place. Both of them are feeling kind of spooky so far. The girl less so than the cat.

I quit Starbucks, and I liked so much that I'm going to do it again. Seriously, I gave notice and then the next day China got bumped to August. So had to tell my boss that no, I don't quit yet.

The otherwise lovely and talented Cat, whom I can't link to, sent me an add for Starbucks line of canned espresso. Have you ever thought that canned espresso and "Eye of the Tiger" somehow go together but weren't sure why? Well there ya go. The ad is funny by the way. Anything involving "Eye of the Tiger" is.

elephant in the room

I suspect that, nationally, blogging tends to drop off when the weather gets better.

The weather is pretty okay in the east bay. But I've gotten entangled with a girl. The relationship is pretty casual, pretty fun. It does consume spare time pretty impressively.

Still, that is no excuse. Girls are distracting, but I'm not going to fall off.

More later, friends.

wherein i am no longer a hobbit

I like bulleted lists. I just do. I like colons and semi-colons too.

• I have moved out of the basement. I have my own room again. No offense meant to elex, but YAY!
  
• Yesterday I was told that people manning the register need to be sweeter. I poured sugar on my own head.
  
• I have found that it is a great fun to go to a photo rating site and make up stories about the people you see. Then rate them not by their looks but based on what kind of person they are in the crap you just completely made up. I am reminded that this is largely the way we elect presidents.
  
• Fog of War is awesome. It was moving, though not to the stone faced middle aged hippy crowd that I saw it with. Wet Hot American Summer is weird. The first bit of the movie is just a normal bad movie and then they shoot up heroin on the trip into town and it only gets better from there.
  
• Tom, Kylee and I are about to go see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It has a pleasing title.
  
• I'm working on something called Election Year Economics - A Quick, Dirty, Foul Mouthed and Pessimistic Guide. The tentative sections are as follows.
  
  
  • Part I: Budget Deficits and Interest Rates. Left gets right, right goes wrong and you get confused.
  • Part II: Offshoring. Dr. Ricardo, we meet again.
  • Part III: CBO Estimates Courtesy of Dr. Charles Shaw.
  • Part IV: Social Security, Medicaid, Entitlements, Demographics, a Couple Vicodin and an Evening with The Statistical Abstract of the United States.
  • Part V: Special Bonus Pessimism: Stephen Roach on Property Values.
• Johnny Logic says that some of my profile pictures makes me look like one of the nihilists on The Big Lebowski. Who will protect you from Ze Germans?
  

psa ptII

Who's going to see the Pixies?

Oh yeah.

I am.

Thanks ebay, for taking away a sizable chunk of my cash in exchange for the ability to see my favorite band.

jesus horses

"gone, like my last paycheck
gone gone away
gone, like the car I wrecked
gone gone away
gone, like a fifth of gin
gone gone away
gone, like the shape I'm in
gone gone away
. . .

gone like a Nixon file
gone gone away
gone, like my landlord's smile
gone gone away"

-John Hiatt

I'm sliding on down to LowCal for a few days, mostly to watch my sister play softball. Since my wireless card hasn't arrived yet, I probably won't be blogging. So I leave you with a link to a work in progress, the out of context quotations of my roomate, Tom Call.

Perhaps you may find this amusing, perhaps not.

PSA

Pixies Tickets

the marvels of stuff

I am having such a simple pleasurable moment right now, and so many things are contributing to it. It is fascinating to consider the range of work and trade that has contributed to it and the complex web of exchange that has made such a simple, relaxing and stimulating saturday morning.

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with local red onions and bell pepper simmered in Trader Joe's fantastic Roasted Garlic Salsa. The coffee is a blend of south american beans, lightly roasted but surprisingly lacking in in citrus-like acidity common to South American beans. (Note, if you get your coffee from Starbucks and you like the milder stuff go for the Breakfast Blend over the Lightnote. It tastes less like lemonade). The coffee was, of course, gratis from Starbucks. You don't need to have three people living in your house that work at Starbucks, like we do, but I highly reccomend getting at least one person per household, there. A free pound of coffee a week when you are poor is very useful.

Soundtrack: an mp3 list created from four collections that includes the Dandy Warhols, Air, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, The Who and Medeski Martin and Wood. Brought to me by a terrifying looking array of wires and chords as well as our liberal interpretation of U.S. copyright law.

Reading: Marginal Revolution. One of the most entertaining blogs by an economist out there and certainly the one I'm most likely to reccomend to my non-economist friends. Brought to me via the internet from two professors at George Mason University that I would almost zero chance of meeting in real life.

View: nearly unobstructed of the San Francisco Bay, (apparently 8% of the property value, but we rent) .

The impressive thing is that I am a pretty poor person, from an okay but not that well off family and yet this dazzling array of goods and services are available to me. Granted, I'm educated and white(ish) so I shouldn't get too carried away marvelling at the wonders of distributive capitalism as practiced in Our Fair Country from one good morning in my house. But it is certainly a marvel in reflection.

to be young is to be sad

Welcome to your midtwenties.

Perhaps by now, you've settled on a career, fallen in love with someone that you think you can be with forever. Perhaps you have a plan and are setting it in motion.

Have you? Good. You can leave the room now. This isn't for you.

I hope you don't mind that I kinda hope you get hit by a bus. It's nothing personal. You should really take it as a compliment. It is nothing more but the shallow heart of envy that makes me speak so.

The rest of us are stuck in dead end jobs, or finding out that the jobs we wanted, we don't actually want any more. Bouncing from one unsatisfactory relationship to another. Buried under a pile of debt and student loans we find ourselves just struggling to climb into the middle class.

Suddenly the taboo about drinking alone gets loosened. We go from drinking to have fun to drinking to not be miserable.

Our grandiose dreams were unattainable. Now we'll settle for not having to worry about the rent each month. If only.

foreigner

I just finished the practice exam for the foreign service. Overall I did rather well, especially on the English usage. There are some pretty strange questions on there. One was about Charlie Parker (got that one right), another about what the Japanese mean by their silences (right) and what the Argentinians call their plains (pampas, and I got that one wrong).

The areas where I'm weak is in the nuts and bolts of the government and the constitution (I couldn't remember what branch the General Accounting Office reported to), and the principles of management (got most of the questions right, just very slowly).

Books are, of course, the answer to improving these areas. So, I'm going to make a stop at the library tomorrow and see what I can pick up. Luckily the back of the pamphlet has a little list of helpful books.

I've never really read anything on management science before. It might be very difficult to pick out a good one.

I'll have to push some of the things I am reading to the back of my dresser. And stop reading so much election coverage.

Maybe it's not such a good time to be trying to piece together a social life, like I was going to, either.

interview

1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

My interviewer was reezon.

1. How'd you get your name, and do you think it suits your character?

It's the real name of one of my favorite writers, Francois Marie Arouet nee Voltaire. I picked it when I was young and in love with all things opposed to superstition and unreason. I've mellowed out about all that since then. But you still don't me to go to church with you.

Also, I almost never have to attach a number to it when I get an account somewhere.

2. What is your biggest mistake?Accomplishment?

Mistake: Living at home for a year after high school while attending the local JC (it's like high school without all the smart people).Accomplishment - pretty much living on my own since then, getting fabulously in debt and getting a degree.

3. Why Starbucks?

Apart from the usual Devil's Laundry List about pay and benefits (and hours that suit my inability to get to bed before 3 a.m. ) I've just kind of been stuck there while waiting for a real job. It's like an old girlfriend that I'm not in love with but who will always take me back.

whew. That sounds sordid.

4. Who do you love?

so many ways to answer this:

Dorky I don't know but he's walked forty seven miles of barbed wire and wears a rattlesnake for a necktie.

Rakish Why, whoever is picking up the tab, my dear.

Celebraphile Maura Tierney, Neko Case and Enid from Ghost World.

Hippy I love everything, especially cute, furry and edible things but not Republicans and bad people.

Insane Toast fucking.

White Stripes Quotation Naw, it can't be love. There is no true love.

Self Effacing The sound of my own voice, apparently.

Facetious Jon Stewart, but not, you know, like that.

Facetious and Yet Disurbingly Close to the Truth Fine food and expensive scotch.

Slutty Whatever will love me back.

Truthful I'm not really in love with anyone, but I am very prone to crushes.

Truthful pII There are a number of friends that I am so fiercely loyal to, in my own quiet way, that it is indistinguishable from love. I think you know who you are. (If you really don't know, if you are a former or current roommate likely to be reading this, then you are certainly in). (Yes, even you).

5. Death by fire or death by ice?

That's a good one. Ice is, of course, nice. But in the end I'm going to have to endorse Uncle Robert's answer and go with fire. Desire is better then hate. Don't be a hatah.

Inventory

I have never placed much value on sticking to beliefs. I like changing my mind and I do it frequently. The way I see it, beliefs inform you personality as much as they are determined by it.

Some ideas stay with me longer than others do. Are they better, smarter opinions? Am I just more stubborn about them?

Sometimes I think that it is the long-standing convictions that people are the most irrational about. The more important the idea is to us, the less we want to subject to the rigors of reasonable debate.

In the spirit of making things more reasonable, (a dubious enterprise, I know)here are some convictions that I have settled onto at this point in my life. How did I come to them? The same way most of us do; some emotional experience, conviction borne of debate or just a half hearted settling on to a conventional opinion. I use a patented mix of carelessness, inattention, the desire to be right and some modest analytical skills.

I'm pro-choice. There is the technical knowledge of the Doctor and the knowledge that the mother possesses about her abilities to raise the child, what is it that the state is supposed to add to make this situation better? What rule will consistently make the outcome better? This belief springs from my general antipathy towards the idea that people should have their decisions made for them by The State or some other remotely interested party. I have an emotionally libertarian (or 'liberal' as I like to call it) streak.

I do not believe in God. I realize that on a topic such as this, certitude is truly reckless and debate is only debate in a formal sense. I do not think there are any decisive logical or empirical turns that could convince either parties one way or the other.

Still, there comes a time when you must place your bets and I know where mine is placed. I do not think God is necessary to explain any of the particular fact I know about the world, from psychology to physics. I do not desire to live by any narrow set of moral rules. The only thing religion has going for it, as far as I can tell, is a sense of community and some pretty okay music (Gillian Welch and Bach are all I really want from any religion).

I am a computationalist, I suppose. I do believe that even if the mind is not really a computer program implemented on the brain, it is an awfully lot like one. I believe that Darwinism is going to one day tell us an awful lot about human psychology, even if it hasn't done much yet.

I am a legal pragmatist. The constitution does not contain a surefire recipe for good government. It is contradictory, incomplete. People of good sense must interpret it, with a steady eye on the consequences. I don't think any legal decision should be made without some sort of consideration of the consequences.

I am not a Socialist. Large state owned companies have, almost everywhere, been disastrous engines for nepotism. I do believe in government, and when it comes to enforcement of corporate crime I think we are far too lenient. Hang the bastards. All in all, they do more than any petty thief to undermine confidence in our systems of government, our economy and our trust in each other. Hang the bastards.

There's plenty more where that came from. I'll stop now, for your sake, gentle reader.

this is the new geography

Living in El Cerrito is like being occasionally groped by Richmond.

Richmond, California has acquired an awful reputation across Northern California, as the ghetto of ghettos. I am kind of a naive country boy. The worst ghetto I've ever been in was Tuolumne, California a small town in the foothills where they throw garbage in all the empty lots and many of the residents are visibly drunk or drugged by 5 p.m.

Tuolomne might still hold the crown.

Richmond did remind of Tuolomne. It is kind of suburban, and they do throw trash in a lot of the empty lots. It isn't that scary, but it is very weird.

Richmond looks like a stain on the map. There's a large chunk of it just east of El Cerrito. Then there's some Richmond north of El Cerrito and little blotches of it all over the place. The streets in many places are numbered, but unlike many places, aren't continuous. If you are looking for an address on 27th, you can't just follow 27th street because it dead-ends many, many times.

It is hard to find things in Richmond. It appears that gas stations in Richmond do not sell maps of Richmond, but maps of other places instead. I had to go to the El Cerrito Staples in order to get a map of Richmond when that was needed. It didn't help much, except to reinforce my conviction that the city rather arbitrarily disappears and reappears.

I believe if that if I lived in Richmond this would make me angry and my impression is so far confirmed. Richmond residents are at least, very loud talkers, every one. Other than that I can't say I've developed any stereotypes about the residents of Richmond just yet.

We are also wedged in between Berkeley and Albany. Albany has made little impact on me other than Albany Hill and that is mainly to obstruct my view. Berkeley has made a few impressions on me. It has stolen my checkbook, mostly. So far all criminal activity that I have heard about in the east bay has taken place in Berkeley.

Yesterday, Michelle introduced Berkeley and I again and more cordial relations may ensue. Comic Relief made me spend some money and Mod Lang made me wish I had more money to spend.

It's neat, but expensive. You can't park or make a left turn there. I like Berkeley but I think she's a little out of my league.

fly HIIIIIGHER than an eaguuuuuuullll

The funeral is over with. It could have gone a lot worse, although not for want of tryung. They played "Wind Beneath my Wings" to a slide show of Josh's dad.

Sometimes the most innapropriate thing in the world is to laugh. Like at a funeral. I drew blood biting the inside of my lip. Dani nearly lost her composure when the minister said we were to let The Lord use us.

We're pretty horrible people, I guess. But still the whole funeral seemed half-assed and insincere. The only things related about Josh's dad that sounded like the guy I met were related by Josh and one of his coworkers. The minister ventured off into Jesusland and seemed rather happier staying there rather than mentioning Josh's dad and what he was like. (I don't know what denomination this fellow was but it is a mighty poor theology where Jesus is the Maitre D' seating you into the appropriate section of heaven).

We were there to pay our respects, I know. But how respectful is playing a Bette Midler song to a slideshow of the recently deceased?

Then again, this was a church that had a basketball hoop inside it.

The effort was nice.

Yeah that sounds good.

I swear that I'm not an asshole.

Not much of one, anyway.

That

You can know something is coming for a long time and still not ready for it when it happens.

I guess it is the old psychologist's distinction between "knowing how" and "knowing that" that gets you. There are lots of things things in life that you can pile up a large mound of "thats" but it never amounts to a "how."

I speak mainly for myself in this matter. I won't presume to speak for Josh as to how he is handling the situation. I showed up and we went to The True Love to watch Mr. Show, which was great and perfect for the circumstances.

You can try to be the best sort of friend you can when things go wrong, but you must acknowledge your limitations, and know there's only so much you can do. Waiting is the cheif thing, right now.

half for me and half for you

The internet has arrived, just beating out garbage and thus avoiding last place in the great utilities race.

I'm ready to start blogging again.

Much has happened, and I'm all dammed up. I would expect a flood of posts and pictures if I were you.

I realized something about this what I'm doing with this blog while I was removed from it. I missed it for two reasons, both cathartic. I missed writing things that people might read and enjoy, and I missed just spewing onto a page. It wouldn't be the same just writing any more. To me this is a living document, some symbols that bear a structural relation with my life.

I missed having the symbols talk back to me, tell me what my life looks like, layed out in discrete chunks along the way.

But I also write for others, and I wish to know that I am read, appreciated and found amusing. Hence the slightly schizophrenic nature of the blog. I do not pause when I need to hold forth with something that can hold absolutely no interest to anyone but myself, but at the same time my most enduring joy comes from the reaction to certain posts.

Anyway a quick overview of recent events is in order for both of us. I give my presentation, with bullets.

I am looking forward to figuring out this new area, even if certain aspects of have already displeased me, such as the entire city of Richmond and the dumb girl who was astonished that I knew who Dr. Dre was. (Yeah, thanks. Do I put off some sort of home schooled naif vibe?)

I get a certain small joy out of going to the new grocery stores, figuring out where the good comic book shops are, and deciding where's a good place to rent movies. I am thrilled with the newness.

Oh, yeah. From the living room, the sunsets backlight the San Francisco cityscape.

Nice.

What We Did On Christmas

Over. Over. Over.

Don't get me wrong. It was pretty fun. I had a good time, with friends I don't see enough. THe family was also pretty well behaved, though my father cleaned my clock at Privateer with freakish regularity.

Other people's did not go nearly as well. Enough said. I won't waste precious bandwidth on my own mundane Christmas.

But I'm pretty exhausted. The holidays just suck up all my energy and leave with a low funk.

I have two shifts left at my mall starbucks, then I finally escape to El Cerrito. I can finally start living there.

The sun is out today, for the first time in a while. I feel like someone waking up from a mildly unpleasant dream. I feel like hoping that my life will improve over the last two weeks. I feel like hoping this for a lot of people. It seems like everyone I know right now feels run down and ragged; sad, tired and hopeless.

Let us all warm ourselves in a sunbeam.

oh. you're a mean one.

This ain't no holiday

but
it
al-
ways
turns out this way

Okay. Call me a scrooge if you will. Call me a crank, or an angry cynic (I'll bark for you if you do).

I hate Christmas.

I'm not a Christian, but I think that has little to do with it. I don't mind saying "under god" when I pledge allegiance to my country. When I do, I just mean every line but that one. I don't mind paying tribute to the Christian ethos which, I think has some useful attributes. Matter of fact is, I love celebrating Easter. If any of you out there have Eastern Orthodox families, you're feeling me on that one.

Christmas is ugly, crowded and grumpy. People in malls look like the zombies from 28 Days After, mindlessly charging towards the counter.

I suppose I must grant that they vomit blood rather less frequently. Even this point I give grudgingly and I'm in no actual mood to grant it.

I dislike my inevitable poverty around christmas. I dislike christmas traffic. I have a hard time shopping for most people, although I really genuinely enjoy shopping for my sister and father.

Working retail is so horrible around christmas time that it defies description. The overuse causes people and machines to break. When you walk into any store, about half the stuff they need in order to work isn't working, and that they are half insane. Most of the poor fucks who serve you are college kids. They got done with finals a few days ago and then they have to deal with this for a week.

Plus, if they have a bathroom that they need to keep open to the public, chances are that someone will have forgotten the valuable pooping on/ pooping in distinction. Just keep that in mind.

Ticknart already linked to this because he's on top of his game, but I loves it so I'm recycling it. The grinch is named steven.

Don't Touch Me

Well, I've slipped the noose. I shall remain without romantic entanglement for the time being, and I am rather happy with that. I am enjoying being single, and having my little harmless crushes on many girls. Right now I feel like that W.C. Fields quote, "Women are like elephants, I like to watch them, but I wouldn't want to own one."

My nomadic existence continues. I broke in the house in El Cerrito yesterday, by oversleeping, padding about barefoot, cooking myself (and Tom) breakfast and finishing Lester Bangs's biography. That makes it feel like a home to me.

People are already starting to filter in for the house party. Nills arrived yesterday. I am one of his fiercest partisans. If you notice I'm spending a lot of my time thumbing through his sketches or pitching him dumb cartoon ideas, I'm sorry.

We still have no phones or internet.

I'm still pretty uncontactable. Crumpled is down. We don't know why.

I have made an enemy of the entire city of Richmond. More details later.

Oh yes, and for my new readers in Davis some recycled links to terrifying net phenomena.

Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

Weird Little G.I. Joe Cartoons

William Shatner's Terrifying Yet Short-Lived Music Career

fortunately for you I still can't find a copy of Suzy Snowflake.
lovins,
to the peeps

I Am Buried

My tentative connections with the outside world have all been severed in a most aggressive and confusing fashion.

I am cuurently splitting time between two apartments. One in Sacramento, which i occupy until my boss stops threatening to cry and wet himself if I leave. The other is in El Cerrito, where I'm trying, with limited success to move into. There are many obstacles.

First there is the small matter of the internet. The DSL gods, fickle and cruel, have cast the apartment in Sacramento into the darknes of internetlessness.

I have been cut adrift by the move to El Cerrito. We do not have a working phone, nor an internet connection, yet. I am pretty much unreachable. I'm not ever near the one phone that my name is linked to.

I think this may have broken me in regards to the whole cell phone thing. I have never like those nasty little devices but, more times in the past week than I would have thought possible, I have wished for one.

I have had a troubled mind as well as schedule over the past few days. Something romantic came in and hit me out of nowhere and now I'm unprepared. I was unable to get ahold of her tonight. I was relieved at the prospect of not having to make some sort of decision.

A real decisive He-man type. That's me.

I like her. She lives in Sacramento, the place I am leaving. This happens at the last moment and I am unsure what to do.

That's pretty much all there is to that story at this point. I am indecisive. Beginning and ending all in one.

Tomorrow I work, then I brew beer. Then, in all probability I try to sort out my sordid personal life and head back to El Cerrito for some unpacking.

There is much to talk about. These days, wonderful things to post come to me in spades, but I must wait for a spare moment and an empty connection at a Kinko's in order to enter them. See you soon, friends.

going in

So the stuff is getting packed up tonight and tomorrow. I'll be living a spartan existence for a while, though without the regimentation and violence. My stuff moves to my new house on Sunday. I have lined up an interview with a new Starbucks on Monday morning. The weekend is going to be busy, and I've promised to be in about nine different places at once on Saturday night. My apologies if I don't make it to one or more.

I'm excited, sad.

My new roommates are awesome. I look forward to having a new view of their lives. Maybe some new inspiration too. I have been feeling a bit stuck lately. It gets like that when you are moving, and you are just killing time in a spot. I long to be in a place where I'm going to be developing my life without fear that I'm throwing effort into something that I will just have to leave behind.

I did make some friends here, too. Sarah and Aria, David and Sampan, they've all been quite good to me. I'll tell you a little bit about each of them some other day. (I've always intended to do little character sketches of the people in my life, for this blog, one of those things I just haven't gotten to, yet).

All those Davis friends I had, too will be farther away. Still I'm sadder for the people I just met, that I didn't get to know better. I know I'll still see most of my Davis crew. They will take an excuse to come to the bay area, where half of us live now anyway.

One of my commitments tomorrow is dinner with a group of old friends who've drifted a bit, lately. We're all gathering for dinner, even the reclusive, yet mighty K.C has been coaxed out of hiding.

A lifetime is spent growing closer and farther apart with people, new friends enter, old ones drift and sometimes are rediscovered. Other times, the sand just blows over what was lost.

You have to lose some things, you must forget. There is not time enough nor energy. We wouldn't be able to function if we remembered everything and we would be overweighed by commitments if we kept a tight grip over each friendship.

Still, one of those things we must do, as humans is lament what we can not hold on to. I'm doing that right now.

That, and packing up my boxes . . . for my new home.

Fin

Concluding my exceptionally short stint as a guest, I bid you fine readers of Green Apron Monkey adieu and retreat to Johnny Logic. Thanks again Otis.

Sacramento Blues

I'm moving soon, and everyone around here is being very sweet to me. They keep sayin complentary things. I have no idea how to handle it. Never been any good at taking compliments. I just get awkward and sad.

I need to borrow someone else's personality for a while. That and some boxes and masking tape. Know anyone?

I also feel constrained about making new friends, normally an activity that greatly excites me. Worse, I meet girls, talk to them (I do too) and then when they hear that I'm moving and suddenly I notice they aren't paying attention as much. I guess that's just as well. I'm still kinda weird and heartbroken.

I am going out tonight again for the urban jazz down at The Fox and Goose. It will probably be our last trip there. I'm getting misty again.

Statement of Purpose Rough

As most of you know I am currently pitching myself to various programs. Part of the process is writing a statement of purpose that makes clear your skills, interests, and experience without being a bragathon. With advanced apologies for its length, here is my rough draft (parts at least):

In this essay I hope to familiarize you with my educational history, academic experience, relevant personal experience and future plans.

My interest in philosophy started when I took an introductory course in philosophy between my junior and senior years of high school. While in Junior College I pursued my interest in philosophy primarily through sustained, extensive reading of surveys and histories of philosophy. Upon completing two years of junior college, I entered Humboldt State University as a philosophy major. There I took a broad array of courses, added a second major in Psychology and a minor in Computer Information Systems. It has been gratifying to pursue common philosophical issues between these three disciplines and see how they illuminate one-another.

I have been a very active student at HSU-garnering experience in academic groups, aiding research, correcting work, presenting to classes and professional gatherings, and pursuing topics in more depth through directed study. To summarize:

I served as a student representative for the philosophy program for two years and was the founding president of the HSU philosophy club. I was an active member of the Psychology club and Psy Chi. This familiarized me with how to lead and organize groups, as well as contribute as an active group member.

I have aided the psychological research of Dr. John Clapper (formerly, Associate Professor of Psychology at HSU) by helping to write a program (in C++) using Bayesian methods for modeling unsupervised category formation. This provided me with valuable experience in modeling-something I hope to continue in the future.

I have corrected tests for biological basis of behavior for Dr. Senqui Hu and edited his notes for the advanced course in biopsychology. Additionally, I made webpages to present the notes.

For three semesters I corrected logic homework and exams, which refreshed and deepened my knowledge of basic symbolic logic.

In the fall semester of 2001 I organized and co-led (with Dr. John Powell) a credit-bearing reading group on Stephen Pinker's "How the Mind Works". This gave me an opportunity to prepare and distribute notes, to lead discussions, and present to the class.

I have pursued and completed several independent/directed study classes whose subjects include the symbol grounding problem, the computational stance in philosophy, and writing an annotated bibliography to computational philosophy. One result was a coauthored paper with Dr. Scott Burgess on the Symbol Grounding problem in philosophy of mind. We submitted the paper to the Australian Computing and Philosophy conference and were accepted. I presented the paper in October of 2003.

Individually, I have completed a large array of projects, such as web-authoring, game programming, and making electronic music. I regularly read books about the history of analytic philosophy, complex systems, evolutionary biology, genetic programming, cellular automata, neural networks, the history of logic and computing.

....

Generally, my interests in philosophy are predominantly about logical and scientific issues and my preferred methodology/style may adequately be characterized as both analytic and pragmatic.

I would like to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy with specialization in philosophical logic, cognitive science and philosophy of science. Secondarily, my interests include philosophy of mind, decision theory, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language and computer science. While acknowledging that my interests may change, specific research topics of interest to me include the formalization of epistemic procedures and natural language, defeasible logic, strategies for solving ill-posed problems, emergence and reduction in complex systems, problems of representation (distributed representation), neural networks, cellular automata, models and modes of computation and information and their philosophical implications. Ultimately, I hope to earn a doctorate and obtain an academic post.

...

In conclusion, I am eager to further my philosophical understanding and make original contributions to philosophy.

Thank you for your consideration.

Parties are Vomit, Conversation

One of my coworkers just vomited on our boss's rug.

My boss and his girlfriend are one of those couples that are just happily settling into being middle class. They don't really care for parties anymore, but they threw one for our store because they thought we'd like it.

We did.

Things of great importance were discussed. Really, they were. Medicare, those damn old folks that are going to suck up all our money, steel tariffs and the latest chocolate is vanilla statement from the Bush administration.

Okay so it was only I discussing those things, with Sarah, a girl who as far as I can tell lives off of coffee, cigarettes and beer. She works for the D.A. as well as Starbucks, is a single mother, is a fan of Ari Fleischer and, of course sleeps about two hours a night.

Aria, another workaholic, joined in as well. Both are Republicans. I kind of enjoy being the least conservative participant in a conversation. In the circles I run with, this is rare.

Gradually we branched out into more inclusive topics, such as:

And then one dumb monkey stopped the show.

I drank at this party, but I stayed the hell away from getting drunk. Because it's my boss's house. It happens to be the last place one wants to get truly drunk.

The poor bastard is currently sleeping in a bathtub. Probably in his own vomit. No one took him home.

He's going to have a hard, hard morning. Waking up in your boss's bathroom covered in vomit is . . . sad? embarassing? words fail me.

Aria and I went outside after everyone has left and talked for a while. I'll miss her. She's one of those people that makes you want to stay up all night, talking to them.

[gets misty]

slow down in output

I just realized that I'm moving this weekend.

I need to pack.

Beware of Face Biting Monkeys

I've been dying, dying to post political stuff lately.

There are so many lively little targets, but right now I've had a few too many to be handling any firearms. There's interesting thoughts to be thunk about trade policy, budgets and matters military. But these things are important and do not deserve to be run over barefoot. Not even in a silly little blog with monkeys in the title.

The basic problem is that I've been running around California any spare moment that I'm not also at work, worrying about work or having little 'I'm going away' get togethers with people. I have no attention span right now. So I give you some little bits off things that are flying around my head, waiting to run into other stuff.

-Jute, We Meet Again.
At Trader Joe's today, I saw that they were selling little shopping bags made out of jute. I actually laughed out loud, in a rather exasperated sort of way, when I saw them. Not just because I'm a complete barking lunatic. Or rather because Jute made me that way. Jute shares with unstoppable zombie presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan a single feature - an eerie capability to pop up over and over again in one's history textbook. It's one of those things that you never hear of until you hear of it and then you never stop hearing about it. You would be amazed how much political drama has taken place, how many weird little corners were turned in the cold war . . . on account of stuff that's basically burlap.

-Tea drinkers, they aren't necessarily sissies.

I hasten to add that I am not normally one of them, but I do enjoy a nice dry black now and again. Herbal tea drinkers, however, are sissies. Unless you're sick and drinking chamomile for your throat. Then you're just temporarily a sissy, on a kind of nancy boy leave.

If you must drink herbal tea, don't put milk in it. If you do that, you are like a child, foolishly imitating adults. Milk is for black tea drinkers, who have a reason to put milk in their tea (it kinda tames the acidity in my opinion, as well as serving the same function that it does in coffee; cooling it and allowing you to get your drugs faster). Herbal tea drinkers have no reason to even be drinking tea and should therefore be denied milk. Especially when they are silly bastards and put the milk in lemon or orange flavored herbal tea. Yes, that means the teas are flavored with actual lemons or oranges. The milk will be curdled by citric acid if you do this thing, and then you will be treated as a pariah by those who opened up and glanced at their chemistry books in high school. But what were you thinking, putting milk in herbal tea? That chamomile too strong for you? Is Taco Bell too spicy for you? I'm just asking.

-Retail People Get Pretty Nuts Around Christmas Time

That's because the inside of their head sounds like this: Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!

Seriously, one of my fellow shifts is losing it. He keeps telling the manager he's moving to Texas every weekend even though he's not. He yells and mumbles to himself when he's working with the slow, stupid partners. He doesn't direct it towards them but it is still about them. They don't know how to respond. They look hurt, but he isn't addressing them so they don't say anything.

I have a friend who is now in charge of her own store, and today I picked up some chai from her evening manager, who apparently has bent around the corner a bit as well. This girl was completely barmy. She talked to me for 15 minutes, while punching her printer every 15 seconds. It wasn't working, granted. Still she never seemed to give up hope on her (hopeless) punching solution. She just nattered away, complaining about the manager that I had introduced myself as a friend of while brutalizing her intransigent printer.

We're all a little mad here.

Happy Fucking Holidays.

Uninteresting Post About Site Relocation.

I plan on moving this blog over to crumpled.com as soon as I can figure what is stopping me from doing so. So far, blogger just yells at me when I try to do it.

More Forceful Tales of Modern Life From One Ill-Equipped to Live It

Keynes has influenced me into thinking that ultimately, cliches run the world. They wait until we are at our weakest and exert profound influences on our behavior.

Like this one: Character is fate.

It's one of the world's oldest and most influential cliches. Like many cliches, I tend to think about it only when I'm vomiting.

When one first encounters alcohol one does some rather stupid things with it. As you get older, you know your limits, know what will screw you up, and most importantly no longer have as any excuses for foolishness. I enjoy a drink now and then, but I am very careful. I know that more than two glasses of red wine will lead to disastrous consequences the next day. I know how many glasses of water will be required to ward off the ill effects of gin. I know that beer makes me lethargic and that I should consume it only occasionally.

Through my sophisticated knowledge of my own body, I can ward off hangovers and avoid moving from pleasantly drunk to retardedly shit-faced, a state (along with Indiana) that I do not enjoy.

Patience, gentle reader, this will tie together. Sort of.

Occasionally, though I do something perversely stupid, hoping that what I know will happen won't and some magical faerie creature will rescue me from the disastrous consequences.

Yesterday, I was supposed to go out for a beer with my boss, a genuinely nice guy that I haven't had a chance to go out for pint with.

Yesterday, I forgot to eat dinner, as well.

I realized this on the way to the pub and was worried by it. I know that drinking on an empty stomach is foolish and not to be attempted, but for some reason this knowledge was overridden.

Now, the type of beer that I enjoy is thick Anglo-Irish sludge. I thought, that maybe with a few pretzels lining my stomach this wouldn't be a problem.

Ah yes, I think the pretzels were the defining moment of stupidity there.

The pretzels were no match for even a small amount of stout. This it was that I, who thought himself wise in the ways of moderate alcoholism, was felled by two pints.

At some point later in the evening my core temperature dropped and I ended up in the bathtub with water on about as hot as it could get. That actually worked and I stopped shivering. Then I had my little run in with the toilet and was forced to contemplate our little dramatic axiom turned cliche.

My character is that of a dopey space cadet, and my fate is to be very, very stiff all day today from having spent last night huddled in a warmth preserving ball.

Right now, I move stiffly and drink black tea, slowly recovering from one of the worst hangovers I've ever had.

Things Not Working

"When you have insomnia, you're never really awake, and never really asleep." - Fight Club

Insomnia has been bad lately.

I'm not very good at being an insomniac. I can usually manage a couple hours even at its worst.

I'm also not good at getting things done when I'm in one of my fits. I don't do my job well, I read sporadically and unevenly and I rarely get writing done. I get unsocial. I find things to worry about.

I become irritable and I have a hard time paying attention to other people.

In other words, insomnia tends to make me into a person that I don't much like, one that I don't much want to be around.

I fight it with movies, with fiction, the internet. Stuff that's more passive for me. My attention span can't really handle much. By 'fighting it' I don't mean that these things make me sleep. They just take up the time effectively. Until it's over.

Maybe it will be over tonight.

Things that have made me laugh recently

Because you deserve this after putting up with my tore posts, loyal readers.

Mac Hall on the perils of renting.

Bob the Angry Flower Kills Everybody.

Penny Arcade on behaving for the guests

The Masterninja, on internet safety.

You Damn Kid on parts left out of the bible. (The second frame of that comic might be worthy of a poster)

Tapped's Weekend Update is not really laugh out loud funny, but worth linking to, anyway.

an older, poignant, Cat and Girl

Which asian chick news reporter would win in a knife fight?

If you've got link, share.

Still Waiting

Working in a mall starbucks right now is about the worst thing in the world.

It has been a two day siege, resembling unto the Helm's Deep scenes from The Two Towers.

Guess who the orcs are.

The people I work with are great, though. They are grouchy, funny, manic. Everybody get stretched thin over the long day of ringing, making and keeping the store stocked. The register people start to lose it.

"We need to put a sign up over the bar, one that says, 'you probably should have thought about that at the register.'"

(said to customer complaining of an unclean bathroom) "Look, I've been trying to clean the bathroom for forty minutes. There's always someone in there. If you people want a clean bathroom I suggest not pooping in it."

Customer: "I wanted this" [thrusts cups forward]
Employee: "And you changed your mind?"

Customer: "You could be nicer"
Employee: "I can, and frequently, I am."

Customer: "Have a nice night"
Employee: "No."

Customer: "Someone scrawled an anarchy symbol on my cup."
Employee : "There's probably an explanation for that, but I doubt either of us would be any happier to have heard it. "

Death Now, Please

ouch.

Today was hell for anyone who works retail.

thankshating.

ouch.

Relatively Undramatic

So that's done with.

I always enjoy thanksgiving. It's a fuss-free holiday. No gift-giving, no costumes just some extended family and food. It's a prince amongst holidays right up there with easter (the greek orthodox variety involves dolmades and barbecued lamb on a spit; I'm not sure how it goes down for all you western infidels), and the 4th of July (I think it's rather neat to show off one's patriotism by getting drunk and playing with fire).

My family is relatively drama free. We are loud, hard drinking, and opinionated but no one gets pregnant young, we stay out of jail, and our divorces are usually amicable. This is not true of all families (each one is different you know), and my heart goes out to all for whom this is a trying time of the year.

We mostly get into obnoxious political arguments. My father, grandmother and one uncle are all pretty conservative. One aunt is a Marxist and one uncle is pretty typical wine country liberal. One cousin is apolitical, while the other is a lawyer and seems to be a kind of neoconservative. He and I usually instigate the trouble and argue down whichever side presents us with the best targets. It's pretty fun.

The apolitical cousin seems to be intent on importing trouble, though. His current girlfriend is an obnoxious chatterbox with a large brood of troubled and easily impregnated teenagers. She wars openly with his mother and merely drives the rest of us insane. Have you ever met someone who's only three topics for conversing are her love for Jesus, her disbelief in evolution (not provoked by me, I swear on the precious) and her various food allergies? If you have and she mostly talks about the food allergies then this might be her.

When she starts talking you start to fantasize about being addicted to heroin because that is the only thing that can distract you from her tedious, embarrassing personality.

This is sad.

She's nice, really. Self-absorbed and silly, but she means well. I do not think anyone who wars openly with his mother is going to be around forever. Normally, when the family sees a boyfriend or girlfriend going through a rough trial period with the parents at a family function, we all pitch in to give them support and make them feel comfortable.

Not with her, though. She's really fucking annoying, you see. It's hard to convince yourself she's worth the effort. And if you help her out you'll only have to listen to her go on and on about her food allergies some more.

So we'll see if my family remains immune from drama. This one means to cause it, either by staying or going.

Work, You Little Bastard

As my earlier post indicated we found a pretty snazzy house outside of Berkeley. We're excited at the prospect yet unsure if we will gain acceptance from the landlady.

I told my boss and coworkers about moving. And that's why I'm currently trying to get my CD burner to behave itself.

I wish I had a copy of High Fidelity. I've read it two or three times but I don't think I've managed to retain a copy of the book. Ditto for the movie.

Other than the fact that I found it to be a disturbingly accurate psychological portrait of someone rather like me it also has a section on making mix tapes for people and how it is similar to writing letters. I wish I could reread it right now.

I love burning CDs for people or for myself. Getting the flow of songs right or just finding stuff you have in common with someone. Creating a mood CD is a soothing way to distract yourself from troubles. My Sad Bastard Vol. 1 Mix is one of the favorites of this household. I'm still tweaking the play list for the long awaited Total Nerdery. I already have an On The Road mix for when I get a CD player installed in my little car.

Right now, I'm burning things I've promised to my coworkers, before I have to move. One is a bunch of radio music that I can download for a coworker because I have broadband. Another is a Pixies sampler platter for another coworker who loves Nirvana but had for some reason never listened much to The Pixies. I have one more for a coworker who (sweetly) cut me a bunch of old blues tracks, so I'm going to burn her up some good vocal and instrumental jazz.

It's my way of saying good bye to some people that I bonded with in my short time here. Maybe they'll put on their CD and be reminded of the day that I went out on the floor with chocolate smeared on my face like war paint. And it will amuse them.

Welcome to Hypothetical Planet

[This thought started on a discussion board.]

Some people need to be the best. If they are with someone they want to be that person's fantasy, their perfect mate. So much so that even fantasizing about a celebrity is verbotten.

I've never been one of those. I have been jealous before, but it takes a lot.

And if I was with a girl who, say, had an enormous crush on Guy Pearce, I would be able to deal with it. I mean, he was in Memento. I'm an entertaining man, but I'm quite alright with not stacking to Guy Pearce, Johnny Depp and Cary Grant.

When we get into Tim Allen territory, that's when I would get offended.

I say this because I have a well publicised thing for Audrey Hepburn. I have a thing for Audrey Hepburn in just about every movie she was ever in, except for the last five minutes of My Fair Lady.

And yesterday, I idly struck up a conversation with someone wearing an Audrey pin, and that led around to her opinion being that she was allowed to have an Audrey obsession, but her boyfriend was certainly not.

I immediately imagined myself in the place of this hypothetical boyfriend. (Her real boyfriend did not, so far as I know, give a fig about old movie stars).

"Look, baby, you're tops. But Audrey was my first love and she'll always be special to me. Yes, I'm sorry. Would you belive that, after Audrey, you are the most beautiful woman in the world? I mean that. Isn't that enough for you?

Awww. Baby. Don't ask me questions like that. If she were alive, willing and young again? Girl, if my grandmother had balls she'd be my grandfather. Relax, baby it's just a a yiddish expression. You're here, I'm with you, okay? Cloning is a long way in the future. You've got no foreseeable competition.

Can you untie me now? "

You've Been Drinking, Haven't You?

Tonight the apartment is beset by troubles that are, alas, not my story to tell.

We house a refugee from high drama and foolishness. People should be nobler than they are, when situation calls for it. They, frequently, are not.

Tired.

Well I've got someone to go with me to Urban Jazz on Wednesday at Fox & Goose, I need someone to go with me to Lipstick on Tuesdays and I'll be set.

I have a feeling I'm going to be borrowing other people's girlfriends for company.

You are Richard Aldington (1892-1962),

You are Richard Aldington (1892-
1962), author of Images of War,
A Dream in the Luxembourg etc.
You're a romantic rebel, aesthetic yet hurt by
the injustices of the world. Polite society
won't like you, and you'll never make money,
but you will enjoy attention from many
members of the opposite sex.


Which of the Imagist poets are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

It's probably right about the not making money bit.

snaked from Three Toed Sloth, who does not write a weblog that frequently employs quizzes, or anything else for that matter. But he has been posting a lot lately and it all rocks.

I wonder if he could convince Professor Delong to get an Open Conspiracy Politcal Action Commitee started.

I should add that the man behind the blog is one of the grand old (young) men of the internet and his notebooks convinced me that there was more to the internet than advertisements. I had a moment of fanboy giddiness when I showed up on his blogroll, though I can't imagine what a academic guy like himself would find worth reading in my antics from behind the cafe counter.

That reminds me. I owe some people friendster testimonials.

The Sounds of Mad Laughter

The Sounds of Mad Laughter

There are any number of fairly depressing subjects that I could write about tonight.

But I don't want to.

I live with these things all the time. But I don't always have to sit down and concentrate about them.

What am I going to write about something worthy and hmm-hom? Something intellectual?

Fuck no.

I want to talk about christmas music.

Starbucks has already started with the christmas music.

Currently I'm okay with it. I'm groovin on it. I am buoyant.

I have reasons for my cheer. The winter season can be stressful and listening to fucking christmas music can certainly add to that. Listening to really awful christmas music makes the whole thing nigh intolerable.

First there's the disappearance of Susie Snowflake. I don't know the backstory to Susie Snowflake. I just know that it is one of these christmas songs that never really imprinted itself into the public consciousness, that it seems to be sung exclusively by Rosemary Clooney and that it is set to the tune of Frosty the Snowman.

Oh yeah and that listening to it for two months straight is pure hell.

I can't describe all the ways that the song is awful. It can just sit in my head and be horrible. I don't think it can be downloaded; which is amazing. There are few things that are so bad that no one bothered to burn them and put it on Kazaa. I have a whole library of songs sung by Leonard Nimoy or William Shatner if you care to dispute this point.

Soul Coughing has a version of it. It gives you an idea of horrible it is without actually being as horrible as the original if you are curious.

Don't be curious.

Anyway. So, for two years straight, Starbucks dug up this treasured little number and put it on the soundtrack, to add to the terror and misery of all its oppressed vassals.

But this year the overlords are kind (niccccee massssterss) and Suzy has been left off the Christmas CD.

They did however, leave on Marshmellow World, a song proven to cause paralysis in the right side of my body. This song will undoubtedly prove my undoing before New Years.

I think this is their way of warning us. Behave, for we can do horrible, horrible things to you if we chose.

We can bring back Suzy.

There's some good stuff, too.

There's a couple versions of Hallelujah (I've warmed to Rufus Wainwright's version). Zat You, Santy Claus (Louis Armstrong) kicks ass in a wholesome way.

Listening to The Nutcracker Suite rules because dance can be incorporated into moving from point A to point B. The Sugar Plum Fairy bit makes me want to prance about the store in a manner befitting a flaming homosexual.

Also, I'm positive it was written by a labrador retriever.

It has big drum sections. Fun to grab cardboard and smash it onto your head to the rhythm.

Then again there is also the techno remix of The First Noel. Remember when we just had songs and there weren't a bunch of people compulsively remixing them into house music?

I'm pretty sure that everything doesn't have to be house music.

That's our lesson for today.

Moist, Whinging Post Withheld, Digression Posted

Moist, Whinging Post Withheld, Digression Posted
Writing on a blog is kind of like keeping a diary and then leaving it on the kitchen table, and then putting it up on a billboard over I-80. Many people may be reading this who have a stake and interest in my life. Many may not.

My mom could read it. She knows where the website is, and from there (when it's working) it would be easy to come here. There is an ex-girlfriend who knows about it. My sister may, and I know for sure that some of my closest friends are reading it. At least I hope that they do.

And then there are a fair number of young communists attending a Sacramento high school.

Most of the time this does not matter, I write as though any or all of these people may be reading and it does not change things even slightly.

Sometimes it's different, though. We live our lives and others lives intersect them and my stories happen to be someone else's. People get awfully funny about things you share about them on the internet. Things can seem harmless to me and be completely out of line to another. If I have access to someone, I usually get their clearance before publishing.

Despite my inherent insensitivity, I love most everybody and do not wish to cause any more trouble.

I mentioned the ex-girlfriend who could read this. She keeps a blog and I do not read it.

For one thing, she has forbade it. That was back in the relationship, when I would have loved to read it.

Then there's the fact that if you read your ex's blog and there's something upsetting in it, who's fault is that? Theirs? For being honest, online?

The way I see it, if you know there's stuff you probably can't handle, don't look. Hence, I think that the idea of not reading the ex's stuff is a Good Thing and should probably be adopted by almost everyone.

But nonetheless, I am still wary of posting things that might cause hurt to sensitive souls. Not that I go around thinking hurtful things and truly wish to post them only to be thwarted by bourgeois morality. It's just that I don't know how they would feel and must therefore forgo said post.

That clear?

Yeah, that's okay.

Stick Yer Foot In It

Stick Yer Foot In It

I'm in my car, driving my friend Lisa home.

In order to get out of the parking lot one must pass through a little checkpoint booth and cough up some cash. (This always makes me feel like I'm living in the West Bank, but that's so irrelevant as to be completely off the map).

Tonight the booth was (wo)manned by another friend of mine. We chat for a little bit as she makes change for me. Then she asks "who's your friend?" in a kind of self consciously nosy tone.

I pause. I've a had a drink or two. But nothing to account for the utter lack of a name coming into my head.

"uhhhh." I say, then I snap my fingers. "Lisa!" I exclaim. Rather like I had just answered a question on a quiz show. Not a tough question, but one that I'm proud to know the answer to.

Everything probably would have been fine if I hadn't snapped my fingers.

Now I'm not really romantically interested in Lisa. She's religious enough to have a jesus fish on her car. Not that I rule out the religious a priori, but I've found that girls who are very serious about religion are not a good idea for me. So it's not that I'm worried I've blown some chance with her, it is just that I've done something phenomenally offensive to someone who's company I enjoy.

Oh yes, and my other friend, the one who works at the parking booth, she thinks I'm taking home random girls that I don't bother to remember the names of.

If life were a ratings site, my numbers would have taken a hit today.

Crock Pot

Crock Pot

There's lots of stuff that I'm going to do that might actually take some time to write and develop, so it might be a slow time in blogsville for a while.

Three articles are forming on the hard drive.

Some Thoughts On Mainstreaming of Radical Culture; inspired by David Brooks and Pink

WTO Debacle (the Latest One); requires actual research.

Otis's Real (joke) Resume (requires actual html programming and graphic design)

And there are some projects I'd like to do and some ideas for this blog I'd like to go after.

1. Helping with CTP overhaul.
2. Adding regular once a week columns. One on politics, one on movies. The movie one would consist of a trip to the movie store by a distinguished panel to view strange and horrible movies for the purpose of doing quick reviews on them. Politics might be functionary-that-I'd-like-to-see-fired of the week type rant series.
3.Occasionally writing up interesting things I find in my econ journals. (Yes I do find interesting things in my econ journals).

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

So a couple of days ago I wrote up the biography section of cornertable as part of the revamp of that site.

The long story of who these people are and how I came to be involved with them deserves some consideration, but must wait for another night.

But they are my friends. That's the important part.

You see the bit where I agree to write things about my friends up on the internet and then put them up without their permission? Yeah, I'm not real sure how bright an idea that is. I'm also not real sure how this task fell to me (I suspect it had something to do with my unhealthy fascination with Friendster testimonials).

Now perhaps you've gone over and read those things. Maybe they could get me into a little trouble? I started off going for overblown praise and then lapsed into merely going for the laugh (I'm like that, you see).

I feel kind of bad for that.

I think maybe I accidentally set off some kind of shit storm.

But then again, maybe not. And I do know the person that I had the most capability of hurting is not (entirely) mad at me. (Again, long story and this time not really blog material).

But Neil is happy. Too bad I couldn't compare everyone to Fred Astaire.

ahhhhhh.

ahhhhhh.

The chicken is marinating in ginger and sherry. I have manhatten fixings and a sopranos tape.

bliss

Things I'm Probably Never Going

Things I'm Probably Never Going Feel Guilty About, That Frankly Puzzle Me When Other People Do.

Drinking to excess.

Eating tasty food that may prove to be bad for me.

Neglecting to exercise in a manner beneficial to my cardiovascular system.

watch this space:

watch this space: http://www.cornertable.org

I am feeling bizarrely social.

I am feeling bizarrely social. I went out on friday, last night and I think I'm going out on tuesday.

That's not really me, normally.

Tuesday = Lipstick = me throwing it down on the floor.

Went out to see some Acid Jazz with a coworker last night. The jazz was okay, the drummer and bassist were fun and when the saxophonist stopped (badly) playing the saxophone and started playing with pedals and switches it got pretty good.

The main problem was that it sounded like Bitches Brew. I like Bitches Brew but if you are a musician who likes Bitches Brew you shouldn't try to sound like Bitches Brew.

Why? Because Miles wouldn't approve. He wanted each of his sounds to capture a moment, and I don't think he wanted music to ever sound particularly like that again.

But it was good company, sordid life histories were compared and a good time was had.

my website is updated. Mostly.

my website is updated. Mostly.

There are some tedious stylistic issues yet to deal with. Maybe I won't deal with them at all. I kind of like the fact that I can pretty much tell where I was, geographically, by whether I have black on white with blue links or white on black with red links.

Before I decided that putting a picture of myself on the homepage was too foolish and vainglorius even for a homepage, I made thalisha take some photos of me and edit them. I did find the results very pleasing, even if I decided not to use them. So I share.

Fold For Easy Storage Well,

Fold For Easy Storage

Well, I didn't get much done in the bay area, but a good time was had. Friends were visited, gin was consumed and irate neighbors were roused by the loudness of our music and horseplay.

Watching the kitchen over at one market is enjoyable and not just because the chef is a badass. We watched with a certain fourth grade fascination as he killed a lobster. It twitched as he cut of its head.

So much of our enjoyment was derived from watching these little badnwidth chewers that it would be criminal for me not to give link and spread the meme.

http://www.heavengallery.com/fenslerfilms/

Nod toward Peter for finding these babies.

I also learned that attaching a definite article makes something more scary. I may or may not beware of dog, but I certainly will beware the dog.

and now's the bit where I fall asleep.

Geek Nesting You know you

Geek Nesting

You know you are a nerd when you see an aisle in Fry's and (audibly) go "Oh! Wires!"

I've got the laptop set up in the bedroom. It is pretty much a groovier machine than the standing beast. It has a better processor and runs on Windows XP Pro, which is remarkably not crash prone. The Beast is in the living room. It has a crap processor, motherboard and video card but a 80 fucking Gig hard drive. Yes, it is basically a glorified MP3 player. Thank you for asking.

The idea is to wire the audio from The Beast through my stereo speakers for CD and MP3 goodness. And that way I don't have to buy a new stereo, seeing as how the current one does play CDs but adds its own little effects such as looping them over and over and stutter starting them. It's like having your very own (crappy) DJ. Only it probably eats less food and contributes more towards rent than one of those would.

Next, we need some sort of gaming consul. PS2 is what I'm leaning toward as it would be the cheapest and I already own some paddles and a game (long story that, but it won't be the last silly purchase I make on account of a woman). I would also like to endow the beast with non-crap motherboard-processor-video card but 1. It costs money 2. I fear what effect that would have on my relationship with the outside world.

Add a well-stocked liquor cabinet and you have a great place to be a geek, which is what I'm shooting for. Well that and a place one could, theoretically, take girls to. Not that there are a whole bunch of those begging to go home with me but for my pad not being swank enough.

Oh. You weren't in danger of thinking that, eh?

I think I'm at the point in the post breakup psychology where I could profit by some female attention and this is working itself out in an odd little Freudian way, through my nesting activities